Pistons rest starters late as 76ers hold on to win

AP PhotoDetroit's Tayshaun Prince and the 76ers' Willie Green, right, fight for ball control during the first quarter of the Pistons' loss Wednesday.

PHILADELPHIA -- With the bus carrying Flip Saunders and virtually all the Pistons' regulars stuck in traffic, assistant coach Terry Porter and the so-called "young guys" were already hard at work on the Wachovia Center floor warming up.

That turned out to be a hint of things to come, as Saunders and the Pistons try to play out the regular season without having someone break his neck. And also why they don't even seem to mind so terribly when the scoreboard doesn't go their way -- as it did Wednesday in a 101-94 Philadelphia 76ers victory.

Once Tayshaun Prince left the court with 10:11 left and the Pistons down 88-74, for the second consecutive night the game was left to all those guys who showed up to work early to do the heavy lifting, while Chauncey Billups, Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess sat and cheered.

While the reserves made it interesting -- drawing as close as 93-88 on Walter Herrmann's 3-pointer with 3:31 left -- they also left little doubt that the master plan Saunders and general manager Joe Dumars have crafted is proceeding well.

At least they sure hope so.

"It's strange, of course," Prince said about the starters being on the bench at the end of games. . "The last two games our bench has done a great job fighting back. But we have to get off to better starts. The last two games we've gotten off to slow starts. If we can start off better it will make it smoother for the rest of the team."

Indeed, with the Sixers shooting 66 percent in the first half for a 58-52 lead by intermission, the tone for the night had been set.

If this was indeed a playoff preview -- though right now, 40-38 Philadelphia seems more likely to draw either Cleveland or the Magic in the first round -- the Sixers don't seem awed by a team that has owned them for years.

"They're one of the best teams in the league at the fast break," said Billups, who finished with a team high 18 points and five assists in 29 minutes. "If you're going to beat them you have to try to contain them and not let them get too many points on the break (the Sixers had 29 to the Pistons' 7). If you don't you're going to be on the short end of the stick.

"I don't think we're turning it on and off," said Billups, after the Pistons saw a five-game winning streak in Philadelphia come to an end. "Obviously if we were trying to win the game we'd be out there the last seven minutes. But when we're out there we're playing hard. The last five years we've played in more games than anybody in the NBA. Every year we've been playing till June. Last year we were logging some heavy, heavy minutes, so this year we've cut back.

"Because of that I think we'll be fresh in the playoffs. We'll see what happens."

Meanwhile, the Sixers, who remain the No. 6 seed in the East, weren't about to look a gift win in the mouth.

"It doesn't matter," said Andre Miller, who scored six and handed out nine assists, many of them to Andre Iguodala (25 points) and Samuel Dalembert (20 points and 13 rebounds). "A game's a game. Whoever they have on the court is an NBA player. We'll take it and move on."

The Pistons, on the other hand, will count the hours until the season is over, so they can finally look ahead.

"Everybody's fighting for something different," Billups said. "They're fighting for the highest playoff position they can get. We're just out there trying to get a little rhythm and stay out of the way."